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The real Labour divide over the 50p tax rate

In an attempt to counter Labour's populist (and popular) pledge to reintroduce the 50p tax rate, the Tories have been quoting Lord Myners' rather colourful denunciation of the policy. The former City minister (from 2008-10) said of Ed Balls's announcement: "The economic logic behind his thinking would not get him a pass at GCSE economics", adding that "We need to encourage productive enterprise and effort rather than resort to predatory taxation. It is not clear how this is going to help the UK economy compete with the world's growth economies. The UK already has an income tax system that is more progressive than most of our international competitors."

But in opposing the policy, Myners is very much the exception that proves the rule. Almost all in Labour recognise that the 50p pledge is a smart way of proving that the party is committed to fair deficit reduction and of framing the Tories as the party of the rich. Alistair Darling, for instance, said on Sky News this morning: "I think in the context, when I increased the top rate of tax to 50p I did it on a temporary basis, I made it very clear that I didn’t see that as being a long-term position but the deficit reduction has taken far longer than anybody would want and when you talk about reducing the deficit, there are quite substantial cuts that are slated to come in after the next election and it just seems to me that we need to be fair about this so that people with the broadest shoulders carry their fair share of the burden."

But it's worth highlighting a more subtle but significant divide within the party. In his speech at the Fabian Society conference yesterday and in his apperance on The Andrew Marr Show this morning, Ed Balls said several times that the 50p rate would only remain in place "while we get the deficit down". This is designed to present the move as a temporary, pragmatic measure, rather than as a permanent feature of the tax system. Balls, who is more conscious than some in the party of the need to avoid appearing anti-business, emphasised: "I've had very many businesspeople say to me over the last year or so, they say: 'We want to get the top rate of tax down' – well, of course they do. I want lower tax rates".

But while Balls has adopted this pragmatic stance, there are many in Labour who are committed to a top rate of 50p as a matter of principle. Back in June 2010, when he was running for the Labour leadership, Ed Miliband put himself in this camp when he said:

I would keep the 50p rate permanently. It's not just about reducing the deficit, it's about fairness in our society and that's why I'd keep the 50p tax rate, not just for a parliament.

He has not repeated this declaration since but many suspect that it remains his private view. What is not in doubt is that a significant number of the party's MPs believe that the 50p rate is an essential means of redistributing income to reduce inequality, not merely of reducing the deficit.

As for whether Labour would scrap the 50p rate once deficit reduction is complete, it's worth remembering Milton Friedman's line that "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme". Income tax itself was introduced in 1799 as a temporary measure to help fund the fight against Napoleon. Two hundred and fifteen years later, it is still with us.

Update: In response to this post, a Labour spokesman told me that "what is permanent is our commitment to fairness in taxation" and that "the 50p rate is specifically tied to deficit reduction". The same source added that the party would have "more to say" in the coming months about reducing tax avoidance, suggesting that it is looking at means of ensuring that it maximises revenue from the new rate.

MP Michelle Thomson's full speech on rape at 14: "I am a survivor"

On Thursday, the independent MP for Edinburgh West Michelle Thomson used a debate marking the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to describe her own experience of rape. Thomson, 51, said she wanted to break the taboo among her generation about speaking about the subject.

MPs listening were visibly moved by the speech, and afterwards Thomson tweeted she was "overwhelmed" by the response.

Here is her speech in full:

I am going to relay an event that happened to me many years ago. I want to give a very personal perspective to help people, both in this place and outside, understand one element of sexual violence against women.

When I was 14, I was raped. As is common, it was by somebody who was known to me. He had offered to walk me home from a youth event. In those days, everybody walked everywhere - it was quite common. It was early evening. It was not dark. I was wearing— I am imagining and guessing—jeans and a sweatshirt. I knew my way around where I lived - I was very comfortable - and we went a slightly differently way, but I did not think anything of it. He told me that he wanted to show me something in a wooded area. At that point, I must admit that I was alarmed. I did have a warning bell, but I overrode that warning bell because I knew him and, therefore, there was a level of trust in place. To be honest, looking back at that point, I do not think I knew what rape was. It was not something that was talked about. My mother never talked to me about it, and I did not hear other girls or women talking about it.

It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised that I quite simply could not escape, because obviously he was stronger than me. There was no sense, even initially, of any sexual desire from him, which, looking back again, I suppose I find odd. My senses were absolutely numbed, and thinking about it now, 37 years later, I cannot remember hearing anything when I replay it in my mind. As a former professional musician who is very auditory, I find that quite telling. I now understand that your subconscious brain—not your conscious brain—decides on your behalf how you should respond: whether you take flight, whether you fight or whether you freeze. And I froze, I must be honest.

Afterwards I walked home alone. I was crying, I was cold and I was shivering. I now realise, of course, that that was the shock response. I did not tell my mother. I did not tell my father. I did not tell my friends. And I did not tell the police. I bottled it all up inside me. I hoped briefly—and appallingly—that I might be pregnant so that that would force a situation to help me control it. Of course, without support, the capacity and resources that I had within me to process it were very limited.

I was very ashamed. I was ashamed that I had “allowed this to happen to me”. I had a whole range of internal conversations: “I should have known. Why did I go that way? Why did I walk home with him? Why didn’t I understand the danger? I deserved it because I was too this, too that.” I felt that I was spoiled and impure, and I really felt revulsion towards myself.

Of course, I detached from the child that I had been up until then. Although in reality, at the age of 14, that was probably the start of my sexual awakening, at that time, remembering back, sex was “something that men did to women”, and perhaps this incident reinforced that early belief.​
I briefly sought favour elsewhere and I now understand that even a brief period of hypersexuality is about trying to make sense of an incident and reframing the most intimate of acts. My oldest friends, with whom I am still friends, must have sensed a change in me, but because I never told them they did not know of the cause. I allowed myself to drift away from them for quite a few years. Indeed, I found myself taking time off school and staying at home on my own, listening to music and reading and so on.

I did have a boyfriend in the later years of school and he was very supportive when I told him about it, but I could not make sense of my response - and it is my response that gives weight to the event. I carried that guilt, anger, fear, sadness and bitterness for years.

When I got married 12 years later, I felt that I had a duty tell my husband. I wanted him to understand why there was this swaddled kernel of extreme emotion at the very heart of me, which I knew he could sense. But for many years I simply could not say the words without crying—I could not say the words. It was only in my mid-40s that I took some steps to go and get help.

It had a huge effect on me and it fundamentally - and fatally - undermined my self-esteem, my confidence and my sense of self-worth. Despite this, I am blessed in my life: I have been happily married for 25 years. But if this was the effect of one small, albeit significant, event in my life stage, how must it be for those women who are carrying it on a day-by-day basis?

I thought carefully about whether I should speak about this today, and it was people’s intake of breath and the comment, “What? You’re going to talk about this?”, that motivated me to do it, because there is still a taboo about sharing this kind of information. Certainly for people of my generation, it is truly shocking to talk in public about this sort of thing.

As has been said, rape does not just affect the woman; it affects the family as well. Before my mother died early of cancer, I really wanted to tell her, but I could not bring myself to do it. I have a daughter and if something happened to her and she could not share it with me, I would be appalled. It was possibly cowardly, but it was an act of love that meant that I protected my mother.

As an adult, of course I now know that rape is not about sex at all - it is all about power and control, and it is a crime of violence. I still pick up on when the myths of rape are perpetuated form a male perspective: “Surely you could have fought him off. Did you scream loudly enough?” And the suggestion by some men that a woman is giving subtle hints or is making it up is outrageous. Those assumptions put the woman at the heart of cause, when she should be at the heart of effect. A rape happens when a man makes a decision to hurt someone he feels he can control. Rapes happen because of the rapist, not because of the victim.

We women in our society have to stand up for each other. We have to be courageous. We have to call things out and say where things are wrong. We have to support and nurture our sisters as we do with our sons. Like many women of my age, I have on occasion encountered other aggressive actions towards me, both in business and in politics. But one thing that I realise now is that I am not scared and he was. I am not scared. I am not a victim. I am a survivor.

Julia Rampen is the editor of The Staggers, The New Statesman's online rolling politics blog. She was previously deputy editor at Mirror Money Online and has worked as a financial journalist for several trade magazines.